Kimberley Strassel: What Nadler Really Wants His strategy clearly aims at provoking a confrontation for political purposes.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-nadler-really-wants-11557442946
Don’t think this week’s headlines about contempt of Congress and impeachment are about anything so serious as contempt of Congress or impeachment—never mind the “constitutional crisis” Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared Thursday. This is red-meat politics.
The House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt. It demands Mr. Barr turn over an unredacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, as well as “all documents obtained and investigative materials created by” Mr. Mueller’s office.
Chairman Jerrold Nadler also threatened to hold former White House counsel Don McGahn in contempt if he doesn’t testify. Mrs. Pelosi spent all week meditating on the prospect of impeaching President Trump, accusing him of “obstruction, obstruction, obstruction,” and even declaring him “self-impeachable,” whatever that means.
Mr. Nadler insists the point of his subpoena fusillade is to obtain “evidence” as part of his “investigation” into “abuses of power” by Mr. Trump. This is obviously untrue, as evidenced by Mr. Nadler’s dogged, daily efforts to make sure he does not obtain any information of value.
Already, on April 18, Mr. Barr made available to senior members of Congress the opportunity to view a version of the report more complete than the one released to the public. It contains the minimum redactions required by law—only 1.5% is redacted material, compared with about 10% for the public version. Mr. Nadler could have weeks ago obtained a flurry of new detail about Mr. Mueller’s investigations and evidence. But neither he nor any other Democrat has visited the Justice Department to view the fuller report. CONTINUE AT SITE
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